Ultrasonography of the biliary tract

Ultrasonography of the biliary tract encompasses the intra- and extrahepatic bile ducts, as well as the gallbladder.

Basic screening

Scan the entire gallbladder in both its axial and transverse plane, looking mainly for gallstones (see Ultrasonography of gallstones) and wall thickening (see Ultrasonography of thickened gallbladder wall).

Borderline of a dilated perihilar bile duct (see Ultrasonography of gallstones for detailed ranges).

Measure the width of the bile ducts, which is usually easiest for the perihilar bile duct (which is the region where the common hepatic duct becomes the common bile duct, at the hilum of the liver). A normal width of the perihilar bile duct can be reported as for the extrahepatic bile ducts, since it also excludes a more distal common bile duct obstruction.

Also take a look at intrahepatic bile ducts to rule out obvious dilation.

Example in a normal case:
Gallbladder with thin wall and no gallstones. Normal width of the intra-and extrahepatic bile ducts.

See also: General notes on reporting

↑ For a full list of contributors, see article history. Creators of images are attributed at the image description pages, seen by clicking on the images. See Radlines:Authorship for details.

↑ Yoo, Youngsun; Mun, Seongpyo (2015). "Synchronous double primary squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma of the extrahepatic bile duct: a case report ". Journal of Medical Case Reports 9 (1). doi:10.1186/s13256-015-0600-1. ISSN 1752-1947.